This invention relates generally to wet pit pumping systems and more particularly to a discharge outlet coupling and guiderail assembly for submersible pumps used in such pumping systems.
Wet pit pumping systems and apparatus for such pumping systems are well known in the pumping art particularly for the pumping of waste water and for sewerage with entrained solids.
The pumping systems used in these applications must be so constructed that the submerged pumps must be removable for maintenance and repair. Therefore, the pumping systems must make a provision for connecting and disconnecting the submersible pumps from the associated discharge elbows or discharge lines for the wet pit pumping systems.
The prior art shows various devices for meeting and overcoming this problem as is shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,880,553; 3,810,718; 3,771,914; 3,427,982; and 3,018,925.
The present invention provides an improved means for overcoming this problem by providing a discharge outlet coupling and guiderail assembly for the submersible pump in such systems which permits the pump to be guided in a vertical axis to bring the discharge outlet end of the submerisble pump into interconnecting relationship with the flanged inlet end of the discharge line for the associated wet pit pumping system so as to insure that parallelism of the joint between the adjacent faces of the pump discharge outlet and the flanged inlet end of the discharge line and that the pump will be level in the assembled position.
This is accomplished in the present invention by fixing the guiderails and the discharge elbow of a discharge line in predetermined spaced relation and providing means to interconnect the discharge of the pump to the flanged inlet end of the discharge elbow so that the joint therebetween can be sealed by a simple annular axially slidable seal member movable to the sealed position by the pressure exerted by the fluid being discharged from the discharge outlet of the submersible pump.